Ex Fato Familia
by mei0023
Summary: A series of one-shots about family, and all it entails. - Chapter 3: Living with a genius was a trial.
1. Inheritance

A/N: 1. Thanks yet again to the long-suffering Sapidus for enduring yet another one of my spur-of-the-moment requests for beta guidance (and for being the only other person I know currently working through Brotherhood for the first time). Hooray for living behind the curve!

2. Thank you so much to everyone who read and reviewed _Repairs_. I'm very quickly realizing what a wonderful fanfic community FMA has. This time, I'll try and be a good author and respond to all comments. Promise!

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><p>"I said <em>you can't do that!"<em>

Trisha Elric stopped dead in her tracks. A squeeze of fingers against leather binding and a deep breath later followed as she struggled to maintain her composure. Her bedroom, and its high shelf bolted to the wall - unreachable even by two industrious troublemakers - was only a few steps away. If she made a break for it, she might reach it before Edward's mouth found an opportunity to dig him even deeper into trouble.

Having to pick him up early from school for misbehaving was enough for one day. Granted, it had taken all her self-restraint not to smile when the book Edward had been caught reading under his desk turned out to be a high school level alchemy primer, filched from the bottom shelf of his father's study. Trisha's good humor vanished quickly, however, when the teacher produced a classroom report and began reading, verbatim, the string of invectives that Ed had unleashed upon being discovered.

His smirk had not helped.

The histrionics that came at the loss of his reading privileges for a week were, she knew, inevitable. It was a small comfort that he hadn't yet made it worse for himself by saying something truly egregious. All things considered, it had been a slow morning for the tornado of trouble that was Edward Elric.

But the tornado was now shouting at her, and the day was still young.

She took a deep breath and counted to three before turning, with a well-honed air of warning, to her eldest son.

"Edward." Her voice was quiet and calm, and laced with a firm reminder of her authority.

For a moment, at least, it had its intended effect; Edward's head was down, his tiny hands balled into fists that shook at his sides. And then something in the air shifted, and Trisha tensed for the backlash.

"_No!_" he shouted, and his face snapped toward hers, defiant.

Trisha suddenly felt as if the air had been sucked from the room. Pools of liquid gold flashed blindingly up at her. Memories surged over her, and she nearly staggered backwards: yellow orbs shining through the moonlight with unmistakable intent; awash with sudden emotion at the sound of a newborn's cry; burning with unnatural comprehension in the widening glow of an alchemical reaction.

_Hohenheim._

Her body froze, rendered immobile by the overwhelming weight of memory. Edward's eyes flashed dangerously, rooting her to the spot. They were not the eyes of a child in a tantrum. Every aspect of Edward echoed his father – his hair, his laugh, his lightning intellect – but those golden eyes were more than some passing inheritance. They were not his own. They taunted her, achingly familiar and suddenly frightening. It was not the gentle and content gaze of her husband the father, but the wild, burning eyes of the man she'd met in her youth, years of happiness stripped away until the only thing that remained was intensity backlit in hellfire.

Trisha felt the book slip from her fingers. Edward's eyes remained on her, screaming his birthright: _Hohenheim, Hohenheim. _

"Mom?"

The question, and the quietly worried tone behind it, snapped her from her trance. She blinked, and suddenly those golden eyes were soft, and wide with panic as they flitted between her face and the book on the floor. Edward's fingers were now splayed into the air, as if he had unclenched his fists only by force. His brow was creased with worry. "Mom? Are you okay? Did I… do something bad?"

The air rushed back into the room, and Trisha sighed. With a small smile of relief, she extended her hand. "Not at all, sweetheart. Now come on; I'll put this away, and we'll have dinner."

Edward eyed her nervously for a moment before taking her hand. "You looked sad, Mom."

She squeezed his hand, and felt her son's fingers tighten protectively around hers. She smiled to herself, and glanced away as golden irises sought hers.

"Just remembering, that's all."


	2. The Sincerest Form of Flattery

**Author's Note**: Written for prompt 110, "Switch," at the FMA fanfic contest. Accompanying artwork can also be found on my LJ. I was initially debating whether to include this in _Ex Fato Familia, _but ultimately realized that anyone with a sibling has had a moment like this.

Thanks again to my wonderful beta, Sapidus, for both his fresh eyes and the enormous stack of D&D books he's entrusted to my care. Seriously, dude. Come pick them up.

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><p>Winry snapped her pencil in two.<p>

"-tomail, my one and only love…!"

Her head whipped toward the door of the overnight patients' room. An exaggerated squeal and a burst of tinny snorting carried clear across the workshop, causing heads among the midday crowd to turn. The overblown falsetto was Ed's, unmistakable and ear-splitting.

It was also, apparently, louder than he anticipated.

"…smell the machine oil! Ooo, I'm Winry Rockbell and I LOVE AUTOMAIL SOOOO MUCH."

Winry stood, brows drawn low as a livid heat rose in her cheeks. Al's furious attempts to shush his brother between fits of choked laughter carried as clearly as Ed's voice through the thin door. Mr. Garfiel glanced over at his apprentice, eyeing her hand suspiciously as she lowered the remains of her pencil and slid her fingers around her wrench.

"Winry, sweetheart," he said, raising an eyebrow as she began to stalk in the opposite direction of the room where the Elrics were waiting. Every eye in the shop followed her. "Where are you going?"

She glanced back over her shoulder, a devilish grin spreading over her face. "Two can play this game."

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><p>A well-timed kick to the door cut short the shrieking laughter. Winry thrust a finger out accusingly, and the light glinted off the steel fastened to her arm.<p>

"DID SOMEONE CALL FOR A GUY SO SHORT HE COULD SKI ON A PAIR OF TOOTHPICKS?" she demanded.

Dumb silence followed as the boys stared. Her hair was pulled back in a low braid, her normal pants swapped out for an oversized black pair, and Ed's coat hung over her shoulders. The crowning glory – a hollow automail arm that she had been using as a machining model – was strapped to her shoulder.

_That's right_, she thought, a thoroughly Ed-like smirk splitting her face. _Go on and stare._

It was only after several unresponsive moments that she noticed Ed.

His hair was unbraided, pulled up in a ponytail high on the back of his head. That, in and of itself, wasn't abnormal – but his shirt, rolled up to his chest to expose his abdomen, was. So was the hem of his pants, rolled down around his waist in a crude imitation of her jumpsuits, and the wrench he held over his head, arms frozen mid-flail.

The silence, if possible, got even dumber.

Alphonse glanced frantically between the two, hands held up in self-defense. "Uh, Winry! We thought you were busy with customers toda-!"

The impact of a wrench sent Al's helmet flying.

Ed dove behind the couch, peeking up over the top as Al cried out and fumbled for his head. Winry's eyes flashed dangerously at both of them.

Ed laughed nervously and sank lower, never taking his eyes off the simmering mechanic who now clasped a second wrench – the one he had dropped in his bid to escape, he realized with a sinking feeling – dangerously at her side. His eyes darted between her face and the wrench. "Hah! Yep, you really got me good there, Winr-"

A flash of realization hit him, and his eyes shot open. "IS THAT MY COAT?"

The tiniest of smirks tugged at the corner of Winry's mouth. "Do you see any other midget-length coats in this shop?"

"WHO'RE YOU CALLING SO SHORT HE CAN USE THE CAT DOOR TO GET IN?"

"YOU, ALCHEMY-FREAK!"

"GEAR-HEAD!"

The crash of a second wrench nearly made Al fumble his helmet. He jammed it onto his shoulders and turned to see Ed crumpled on the floor. Winry loomed over him dangerously, eyes flashing like an electrical storm.

"SOME PEOPLE IN THIS SHOP ARE TRYING TO WORK!" she bellowed, and spun on her heels toward the door.

"Oh yeah?" Ed rose slowly to his feet, and extended his hands toward Winry. "Without these?"

Winry stopped in her tracks, and looked down at her pocket. With a start, she spun toward Ed. He grinned at her, a wrench in each hand.

"Give it BACK!" she yelled, face turning an unnatural shade of red.

Ed grinned wickedly. "Maybe you should watch your equipment better!" He inched back toward the window, and his head whipped toward his brother. "Al! Catch!"

Al yelped as Ed hurled a wrench at him. He pulled his hands back as if the tool were on fire, and it clanged to the floor as he withdrew toward the wall. "Brother, I'm not getting involved in this!"

Ed froze and swallowed. Winry was at Al's feet in a flash, looking up at him from under her bangs with a maniacal smile. "You're a good person, Al."

Al saw the panicked glare Ed shot at him. He read the meaning as surely as if it had been written on his forehead: _Traitor!_

Ed shrunk back as Winry stood, slowly, turning to face him. "Ed. Drop the wrench."

The alchemist's eyebrow twitched violently in the silent seconds that followed. Alphonse struggled to absorb the situation; Ed, with his shirt hitched ridiculously at his chest and the waist of his pants rolled down at the hips, and Winry, radiating waves of anger and stalking toward him with the most Ed-like stride Alphonse had ever seen.

Then, with matching screams and the slam of toppled furniture, they were gone.

Alphonse hesitated before stepping over the upset couch and sticking his head out into the hallway. Two blurs of motion were tearing through the workshop, leaving wide-eyed stares in their wake. It took less than a minute for Winry to have Ed darting out the door and into the street, taunting her over his shoulder.

A moment of stunned silence followed as Winry slammed the front door shut. The rest of the shop sat in stunned silence as a tornado of papers fluttered gently to the floor. Winry's shoulders heaved in a silent sigh, and for a moment, Al thought he saw a smile flit across her mouth.

The slightest twist of her head was all it took for Alphonse to yelp and lock his room behind him.


	3. Genius

_Boom! Thought I was dead, did you? Well, yeah, I kinda have been. But, in the words of Miracle Max, "There's a big difference between mostly dead, and all dead."_

_I actually found this on my computer earlier today, and figured that it would be presentable after a little cleaning up. So here you go!_

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><p>It was not easy living with a genius.<p>

The violent bursts of inspiration weren't all that disruptive (not once she'd gotten used to the frantic scramble for paper and the inevitable self-cloistering that came after), and the puffed-up egotism triggered by a new breakthrough was strangely short-lived when Ed had no one else to brag to.

Granted, it wasn't often that Ed was without an audience, but after Al had departed for Xing, it was becoming more frequent. With no other available subjects, Ed would raise a dramatic finger, proclaim his genius, and then glance at Winry with a mischievous gleam in his eye. Reliable as clockwork, she would merely roll her eyes before returning to the work in front of her.

It was a well-worn ritual, and she could never resist when her eyes wandered back up to his after only a moment away. The two pools of gold always met hers, a softness in them that triggered a gentle fluttering in her chest.

She didn't understand him. He had traveled the world, saved cities, seen the Truth, etched his name into generations of history texts, and _still_ he looked at her as if she was the only woman he had ever known. Those eyes, which had witnessed so much, held one look that was reserved just for her.

She couldn't understand, and that lack of comprehension frightened her.

Part of her wished, somehow, that he had been with other women. It was irrational, but the knowledge that he had loved another and somehow still been pulled back to her would have at least given her the comfort that her faults were not overwhelming. At least there was someone out there worse than her, her reasoning went. Proof that he had not loved her simply because she had always been around.

The thought made her lay awake at night.

His shortcomings never bothered her. Every flaw – his unchecked temper, moments of arrogance, his occasional struggle with a stuck pickle jar – simply reminded her that he was human. In the end, it only served to make his staggering intellect all the more terrifying.

She had, once upon a time, proudly declared herself smarter than Ed or Al, with the test scores to back it up. Ed had even accused her of being a nerd. But in the long run, fourth-grade class rank didn't hold for much. When Ed and Al had returned from their teacher's home, they were Prodigies. And in the greater hierarchy of genius, prodigies outranked nerds.

Sure, she had found her niche. Rush Valley was the epicenter of automail, and it took months for innovations to trickle down to mechanics in Central. She had made her contributions, toyed with some new alloys, tweaked some mechanisms to reduce stress on the ball joints – but she was no prodigy. She wasn't even the valley's youngest mechanic. But she was known enough, a known name if not a celebrity.

Until, like clockwork, Edward Elric would materialize at her doorstep, and she would drop everything. Her business, her studies, her own ambitions – all tossed aside like scrap so that she could support him in pursuit of his goals. She did it willingly, time and again, with a devotion so unquestioning that it even startled Ed into silence sometimes.

Hesitation was just another way of failing Ed, and she could never live with herself if she failed him.

She loved him. The realization was recent, but she knew, at her core, that she had loved him since long before that day when he had glared at her from behind a tree, trying to be invisible as Al declared that he had won the right to Winry's hand in marriage.

Knowingly or not, he had always been her signpost. And if love was a cage – to him, to his genius, to that inexplicably gentle gaze – then she would not rattle its bars.


End file.
